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Okra on the mend

The good news? Ms. Okra is on the mend and got a good report from Annie this morning.

The bad news? The photos below might turn your stomach. Beware! But I am sharing Okra’s road rash reality. And I hope to document her recovery with photos showing her wounds heal over time. The body is such an amazing healing machine! Especially in a puppy.

I knew we were out of the woods Wednesday night when I looked over at the patient and she was wagging her tail and asking for a belly rub. I’ve been met with lots of wags the last two mornings as well. Good news!!

But there have been a few bumps in the road. We brought Okra home Monday. I woke up Tuesday morning to find her asleep in her crate with the blue collar folded nicely in the corner. She had chewed through the the cord holding the drape around her neck, removed the collar, and then removed a couple of drains from the wound on her ribs and the stitches from the wound on her shoulder. Sigh. We sent Annie the photo below.

Annie said there was no need to restitch her because she would just do a repeat performance. So we just kept up our washing + Bacitracin (antibiotic cream) routine.

While the wound on her ribs was closing up, the one on her shoulder seemed to grow. Yesterday, she got the drape off again and did some more work on the shoulder wound, almost removing the drain.

It also became really obvious that much of the skin was dead. It started to tear away. I was worried when last night I washed and dressed her now way bigger wounds.

But I knew we had a recheck with Annie this morning. She said that Okra’s current state is what she was afraid might happen–the skin did not survive the accident and it is getting sloughed off as new skin starts to develop underneath (kind of like loosing baby teeth as adult teeth come in).

Annie cleaned Okras wounds (not fun for any of us, but especially for Ben who was holding her on the exam table). And she trimmed away the dead skin, leaving wide margins so as not to damage any living skin that is still there. Annie said this is one of the worst cases of road rash she has seen.

And although the big open spot is really hard to look at, Annie says that it is really clean, free of infection, and healing well. Much of it is actually not raw–there is new skin growing! Amazing!!

Annie says that she will have all new skin in the next couple of months and by summer it will all be covered with fur.

In the meantime, Okra is taking it easy, eating well, doing a lot of sleeping, and being very patient with us as we do our best at nursing.

Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers! We are thankful for so many caring and concerned friends!